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Sunday, September 19, 2010

As regular readers of this blog know, I am a college football junkie. To me, it's the greatest sport in the world hands down. After watching a full Saturday slate of college football, NFL Sundays are a huge letdown. The NFL may be football played at a higher level, but it cannot come close to college football's tradition, pagaentry, spectacle, passion & intensity. College football has rivalries that span over 100 years, involve in state rivals, entire regions of the country, conferences and neighboring states. Families are raised on a particular team and it is passed down from generation to generation. NFL stadiums are antiseptic corportate boxes that average around 60,000. College football is played in historic stadiums, some that seat 100,000 rabid fans and up.

Speaking of conference rivalries, as someone that was born & raised in the Northeast and spent most of my adult life on the West Coast, I lean towards the Big East and PAC 10. Both of which get overshadowed by the other conferences. How does this relate to this week's AP poll? How the heck does West Virginia drop a spot after dominating Maryland on Saturday? How does Pitt, after losing on the road by a field goal at current #13 Utah (one of college football's most intimidating home fields) drop from #15 out of the Poll completely in week 1? Bias against the Big East, that's how. Year after year, the Big East gets bashed. You'd think that after suriving the raid by the ACC earlier this decade and seeing WVU beat the almighty SEC's Georgia in the 2005 Sugar Bowl in Atlanta and beating down highly touted Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, people would give the conference a break. Not to mention, Louisville's '06 Orange Bowl win over the ACC's Wake Forest. These BCS bowl wins (compared to the ACC's pathetic BCS bowl record) ought too be enough to give the Big East the benefit of the doubt when they have a down year.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Weekend highlights included College Football's "Monster Saturday" which featured an usual amount of early season high profile games involving traditional powers. While it may not have lived up to the hype (many of the games were lopsided), it did help to bring some clarity to the landscape. Alabama and Ohio State look awfully tough so far this young season. Elsewhere, the almighty NFL returned on Sunday to the delight of fans nationwide. And last but certainly not least, Kevin Durant led a talnted but unheralded group of young NBA stars to the FIBA 2010 World Championships of Basketball. The USA last won Gold in this event in 1994 and won Bronze in 2006. This should hopefully put to rest all the nonsecial debate about who the dominant basketball country in the world is. The USA now boasts the 2008 Olympic Gold and the FIBA 2010 World Championship Gold.